


The Most Important People in the Universe

by it_will_be_anarchy



Category: Doctor Who, Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2017-12-23 15:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/it_will_be_anarchy/pseuds/it_will_be_anarchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Castiel knew is that he had fought tooth and nail through hell to reach Dean. All he knew is that this man standing before him was destined to be the Most Important Man in the Universe.<br/>River swallowed, and then said thickly, “What the angels need is…the Most Important Woman in the Universe.” Silence ensued. After several tense moments, the Doctor turned around and stalked into the TARDIS, slamming the door behind him. He then sank down against the door until he was sitting on the floor. He put his face in his hands and cried.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is mostly a lot of dialogue, and if I had a nickel for every time I used the word 'said,' I'd be able to afford college. It will eventually get darker than what may be expected. Everyone may be a little out of character, if it was deemed necessary to move the plot along.

Dean sat on a table across from Bobby. Bobby whistled slightly, holding his shotgun, while Dean idly twirled his knife’s edge across the table. They sat in the appearance of being nonchalant, while in all actuality Dean’s insides were twisting inside of him. The garage around him was covered in symbols from every religion known to man. The sky outside was dark, and the only light source came from harsh overhead hanging lights.

Dean grew tired of sitting quickly, and asked Bobby irritably, “Are you sure you did the ritual right?” Dean was, of course, referring to the summoning ritual Bobby had just performed, to find out who--what--had dragged Dean out of hell.

Bobby only glared at him in response, and Dean said, “Sorry. Touchy, touchy, huh?”

At which point the whole garage started to shake. The panels on the roof flapped viciously. “Wishful thinking, but maybe it’s just the wind,” Dean said as he and Bobby jumped to their feet, looking around, weapons at the ready.

Every hanging light then proceeded to blow out, raining sparks down upon the scene that unfolded before Dean. The doors of the garage opened of their own accord, and in strode a…man. Just a man, in a trench coat, looking around him with a vaguely bemused but mostly stern look upon his face.

Dean and Bobby, both wielding shotguns, began to shoot at the stranger. Astonishingly, each bullet entered the man, but did not faze him in the least. He continued to walk toward Dean with determination.

Dean grabbed his knife as he came face-to-face with the man. “Who are you?” he demanded.

The man’s dark hair was messy and windswept, and his eyes were a wide and an unassuming blue color. His voice was shockingly gravelly as he answered, “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.”

“Yeah. Thanks for that,” Dean replied, and stabbed his knife into the man’s chest. The man looked at the knife, drew it out, and dropped it. The knife clattered on the floor.

Bobby took this chance to attempt to hit the man in the head with a crowbar; but the man sensed the movement, and without even looking gripped the opposite end, stopping the movement. He then twisted nimbly and raised two fingers to Bobby’s forehead. Bobby’s eyes rolled up into his head, and he dropped to the ground.

Dean watched this happen in a terrified sort of awe. His breath hitched when the man turned back to stare at him. His expression was one of…well, almost of nonchalance.

“We need to talk, Dean,” the man said. He cast a quick glance to Bobby, which Dean mimicked, before he continued, “…Alone.”

Dean stared back at him for a few moments, before rushing to check Bobby’s pulse. 

“Your friend’s alive,” the man said with no intonation.

“Who are you?” Dean asked again.

“Castiel,” the man responded.

“Yeah, I figured that much, I mean what are you?”

The man stopped fidgeting with Dean’s impressive array of weaponry that he had set aside for this encounter and looked back at Dean. “I’m an angel of the Lord.”

Dean stood up. “Get the hell out of here. There’s no such thing.”

Castiel moved closer. “This is your problem, Dean. You have no faith.”

Suddenly, thunder sounded, and lighting flashed into the garage. Dean saw a pair of shadowy wings unfurl and rise behind Castiel. Dean couldn’t believe his eyes.

Finally, Dean found words. “Some angel you are. You burned out that poor woman’s eyes,” he said, referring to the unfortunate encounter in which the psychic Pamela had tried to look upon Castiel and ended up blind for it.

“I warned her not to spy on my true form. It can be…overwhelming to humans,” Castiel said carefully. “And so can my real voice. You already knew that.”

Dean thought back to the high-pitched whistle that he had been hearing since he had come back from hell. “You mean the gas station and the motel? That was you talking?”

Castiel nodded.

“Buddy, next time, lower the volume.”

“That was my mistake. Certain people, special people, can perceive my true visage. I thought you would be one of them. I was wrong.”

“And what visage are you in now, huh?” Dean sneered condescendingly. “What, holy tax accountant?”

“What, this is…a vessel,” Castiel replied.

“You’re possessing some poor bastard?” Dean said angrily.

“He’s…a devout man, he actually prayed for this,” Castiel said, seeming almost confused as to why Dean couldn’t grasp the idea.

Dean shook his head slowly. “Pal, I’m not buying what you’re selling, so who are you really?”

Castiel tilted his head and squinted at Dean. “I told you.”

Dean nodded once. “Right. And why would an angel rescue me from hell?”

“Good things do happen, Dean,” Castiel said, stepping closer and practically ignoring all unspoken rules of personal space.

Dean stared him down for several seconds before saying in a gruff voice, “Not in my experience.”

Castiel looked at him disbelievingly. “What’s the matter?” He looked closer for a moment, and then said, “You don’t think you deserve to be saved.”

Dean was momentarily taken aback by the accuracy of Castiel’s statement, but brushed over it by saying, “Why’d you do it?”

Castiel kept a steely gaze on Dean as he said, “Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you.”

Dean’s confusion was evident. Castiel couldn’t explain more at the moment, as he barely knew what Dean’s mission was himself. All he knew is that he had fought tooth and nail through hell to reach Dean. All he knew is that this man standing before him was destined to be the Most Important Man in the Universe.

 XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

“Doctor?”

“Yes, Clara, what is it?” the Doctor said, a little impatiently, looking up from where he had been doing a little routine maintenance on the TARDIS.

“A message. The TARDIS is receiving something.”

The Doctor stood up, pushing his hair back from his face. He moved quickly to the TARDIS monitor, where a message flashed brightly, demanding attention.

Hello Sweetie, followed by a set of coordinates.

“Hello Sweetie,” Clara read. “What does that mean, Doctor?”

The Doctor gulped. “It means,” he said, straightening his bowtie, “we’re going to have to pay a little visit to the Mrs.”

“To the what?” Clara squawked, but the Doctor was already inputting the coordinates into the TARDIS. He pulled the lever, sending him and Clara spiraling through time and space, leaving Clara’s thoughts spinning.

The TARDIS touched down in London, circa 2008. The Doctor always felt strange around this time. This was around the time that he seemed to find most of his companions. Maybe the TARDIS just had a strange pull to 21st century England, he wasn’t quite sure.

The Doctor opened the doors of the TARDIS. It was sitting right below Big Ben. Clara followed him out the door, asking a bunch of hurried questions that the Doctor didn’t quite listen to. He was waiting for a familiar shape--a telltale head of bouncing curls in the crowd…

“Hello Sweetie,” came the voice from behind him. The Doctor and Clara both jumped and spun around. There she was, River Song in all her glory.

“Who are you?” Clara sputtered out quickly.

“Professor River Song, dear,” River said, holding out her hand to politely shake Clara’s.

“Why’d the Doctor refer to you as ‘The Mrs.’?” Clara said breathlessly.

“She’s my wife,” the Doctor replied, almost warily.

“Your…wife?” Clara said, astounded. Her eyes were wide as she looked back and forth between the Doctor and River.

“The both of us are time travelers,” River explained. “We never seem to meet quite in the right order, though. This, however, is astonishing,” she said, smiling at Clara, “as it seems that we are meeting for the first time, both of us not knowing who the other is, which doesn’t happen often for me. What’s your name, dear?”

“Clara. Clara Oswald,” Clara said, with a sort of goofy smile creeping up her face.

“Lovely to meet you, Clara. And as for you, Doctor,” River said, pulling out a blue notebook from her jacket, “where are we?” She flipped through a couple of pages before saying slowly, “Demon’s Run?”

“Yes,” the Doctor said almost impatiently, “but River…Manhattan?”

River flipped through some more pages. Then she smiled. “So we’re to meet in Manhattan, are we? More fun to look forward to. Maybe we should ask mum and dad to come along,” she said with a wink. “So I think I have a pretty good gauge of where you are, and you know where I am it seems, so let’s get down to business, shall we?”

The Doctor looked pained, but resigned. “Why did you call me here, River?”

River’s smile slipped from her face. “Well, you see, this is where things get complicated,” she said. She turned to Clara. “Sorry, this all must be a bit confusing for you.”

Clara shrugged. “I’m used to it. Traveling with the Doctor, I’m never not confused.”

“Well, I don’t know how much he’s told you about himself,” River said carefully, slowly. “But not everything is…good in his past.”

“River, what are you getting at?” the Doctor said, his voice smooth and questioning, but his insides were twisting with panic.

River sighed and moved her hands through her hair. “Well, long story short, the angels and demons are at it again, just being their nasty selves for starters. Not the weeping angels,” River added quickly, after seeing the Doctor’s wide-eyed look, “the actual angels. You know, the ones you practically swore never to deal with.”

“I still don’t plan on dealing with them, if I can help it,” the Doctor said moodily.

River gazed at him with pity. “Oh, sweetie, I wish it could be so. But you know how meddlesome they get in the affairs of certain humans.”

“Oh, don’t I,” the Doctor grumbled.

River squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, before saying slowly and in a pained voice, “There’s no easy way to say this, but they’ve created a…sort of…prophecy. They are afraid that Lucifer will be making a grand return, and they need people to stop it.”

“Me? They want me to stop it? No thanks, that’s not really my area,” the Doctor said vehemently. “The angels can deal with the angels. They have been for the history of the universe, why do I need to step in now?”

“No, you’ve got it wrong, Doctor,” River said sadly. “You know how they use humans to fulfill their wishes against one another. No, Doctor, they’ve chosen a human to complete the prophecy. But I’ve been in contact with a few of them, and they’d really like your help with this, if you’d be willing to lend them some.”

“Get on with it,” the Doctor hissed, stepping closer to River.

“They’ve chosen two people. They’ve got control of the one situation, but you need to help them with the other.”

“What, what is it!” the Doctor practically yelled, fire and ice and rage all burning in his eyes. “What could they possibly need!”

River swallowed, and then said thickly, “What they need is…the Most Important Woman in the Universe.”

Silence ensued. River looked at the ground sadly, while Clara watched the two of them, noting their distress. After several tense moments, the Doctor turned around and stalked into the TARDIS, slamming the door behind him to keep Clara and River out. He then sank down against the door until he was sitting on the floor.

He put his face in his hands and cried.


	2. Chapter 2

“So it was an angel?” Sam said, taking another stab at his salad with his fork and munching loudly on the lettuce.

“Yeah, it was an angel,” Dean said as he took a bite of his burger. His mouth was full when he continued, “Said his name was Castiel. If that’s not a dick name then I don’t know what is.”

“So God, the Bible, all that stuff is real,” Sam said in wonder, not making eye contact with Dean.

Dean snorted. “Yeah, well, just because there’s angels doesn’t mean there’s a God. And just because God gave me work to do doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”

Now Sam looked at Dean. “Shouldn’t you, though? I mean, it’s God, Dean. You can’t just blow this off.”

Dean chewed and ungracefully swallowed. “Yeah, well, I don’t even know what it is that God wants me to do. I mean, that angel dick disappeared pretty fast after we had our little discussion.”

Sam shrugged. “Well, there’s got to be a way to call him back. I don’t know, maybe, pray to him or something.”

Dean shook his head. “No way, Sammy, I’m not doing that. If they want me, they can come to me.”

Later that night, Sam was in the shower while Dean was laying on his bed in the motel, idly flipping through channels on the TV. He was about to drift off to sleep above the covers when there was a sound like a rustle of wings, and Castiel literally appeared out of thin air.

Dean started, and his heart must have skipped a beat. He clutched at the side of the bed, and managed to choke out, “Damn it, Castiel,” before regaining himself.

“Hello Dean,” Castiel said.

“How the hell…what the hell…why the hell are you here?” Dean stuttered angrily.

Castiel furrowed his brow. “Well, I thought I’d take this opportunity to answer any of your questions that I can, since we’re…alone.” He cast a pointed look in the direction of the bathroom, where Sam was still showering.

“Anything you have to tell me, Sam can hear,” Dean said, but decided not to push that fact because at least the angel was here. “I just want to know what God wants with me.”

Castiel moved closer to Dean, once more disregarding personal space, until he was standing over him. “The exact details are confidential,” he said, “but I can give you an idea. I trust that you remember Lilith.”

Dean coughed. “Remember? She’s a pretty constant part of my nightmares, man.”

“Well, Lilith is trying to break the sixty-six seals as told in the book of Revelation to free Lucifer from his cage.”

Dean took a moment to process this, before saying carefully, “Lucifer? As in, Satan?”

“If you prefer to call him that.”

Dean let out a small, disbelieving chuckle. “And so what would happen if Lucifer went topside?”

“The apocalypse.”

“Great,” Dean muttered. “Fantastic. And what does God want me to do about it? Stop Lilith?”

“That remains to be seen,” Castiel said. His blue eyes were fixed unblinkingly on Dean’s. “But I need to know that Heaven has your full support.”

“My full support?” Dean said, springing to his feet and striding away from Castiel. “I can’t support this when I barely know anything about it! I don’t want to say yes if all Heaven is going to do is send me on a suicide mission!”

“Heaven does what is best for mankind,” Castiel said patiently. “Your intention has always been to do what you find best for mankind. I’m sure God only deemed that you and I had matched objectives, and decided that you had the skills to carry out what needed to be done.”

“Yeah, well, do me a favor, Cas, and come back with some answers next time,” Dean said, turning his back to Castiel.

Castiel stood there for several moments, before there was a rushed sound of wings. Dean turned back around and Castiel was gone.

“Were you talking?” Sam said, coming out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist.

“Castiel was here,” Dean said flatly.

Sam looked around, eyes wide. “He was here? Where did he go?”

“I found out the scary way that angels can just pop up out of thin air if they want to. And they can disappear just as fast.”

Sam sat down on his bed. “Wow. Dean, I mean, what have you gotten yourself into?”

“I didn’t ask to be dragged out of hell.”

“Well, no. But I’m sure being here is better than the alternative, isn’t it?” Sam said, biting the side of his tongue and looking meaningfully up at Dean.

Dean sat down on the edge of his bed. “I just want some damn answers, Sammy.”

“And I’m sure you’ll get them, all in good time. I doubt that it’s often that God sends heavenly messengers to communicate directly with humans, so I think we need to be patient as everyone just figures out what’s going on. So tell me, what did Castiel tell you?”

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

It was a long while before the Doctor opened the TARDIS doors once more to allow Clara in.

“Doctor,” she said hesitantly, before gathering her courage, “can you tell me what’s going on?”

“Where’s River,” he asked, his voice slightly scratchy.

“She left,” Clara replied. “She had to go, but she said just to call if you needed any help.”

“She didn’t explain anything to you?”

Clara bit her tongue before saying, “She told me…you had a friend once. And you lost her.”

The Doctor sighed. “Sit down, Clara.”

Clara perched precariously on the edge of one of the TARDIS’s steps, and the Doctor sat next to her.

“I had a friend a while back,” he began gradually and delicately. “Her name was…Donna. Donna Noble. And she was extraordinary.”

The Doctor fell silent, so Clara smiled and nodded at him, her eyes soft, encouraging him to go on.

The Doctor licked his lips. “It’s hard to go into all of the details, but in a way her mind sort of…became like mine. She started to think like a Time Lord. Humans aren’t meant to think like Time Lords, Clara. And it was going to destroy her from the inside out.” The Doctor’s voice cracked a little, and Clara put her hand on his shoulder. “She had never thought of herself as anything special. And finally she discovered that she was special, but she couldn’t stay that way. She had to forget all of our travels to have any chance of staying alive.” The Doctor shuddered. “I had to build a sort of…a sort of wall in her head, to block out any memories of me. She forgot everything. And she went back to her normal life, and to this day, she doesn’t remember that she saved the universe.” Clara gasped, and the Doctor smiled. “She did, Clara, she really did. The entire universe would just be a void of devastation if it weren’t for her. And she doesn’t even know she did it. She still goes through every day believing that she’s nothing remarkable. But she is so remarkable, Clara.”

Clara allowed the story to sink into the silence for a while. Then she said, “So we need her back, then? But what’s going to happen? If you needed to block her memories, what would happen if she remembers?”

The Doctor’s voice shook. “Nothing good.”

“So how do we solve this?” Clara said determinedly, jumping to her feet and pacing around the TARDIS. “There must be an answer.” She stopped walking and looked at the Doctor. “If they want her so bad, the angels must have an answer. Why can’t we just talk to them?”

The Doctor stood and straightened his jacket as he walked over to the TARDIS console. “The angels and I aren’t exactly on…speaking terms.”

Clara huffed. “Oh, come on, Doctor. For Donna’s sake, we need to do something, don’t we?”

The Doctor paused for a moment. Then he came over and kissed Clara on the top of her head. “You’re wonderful,” he murmured. “Absolutely brilliant. Of course you’re right.”

Clara grinned. “Clara Oswald for the win. Oswin!” she said, giggling.

The Doctor pretended his hearts didn’t lurch at her words, and entered the coordinates into the TARDIS.


	3. Chapter 3

“So we kill Lilith,” Sam said. “We kill Lilith, and no one is left to break the seals.”

“Don’t pretend that killing Lilith is going to be an easy feat, Sam,” Dean growled from behind the wheel of the Impala as they drove slowly through the center of a town. They had been battling demons for weeks now, with Cas popping in every now and again to let them know when they needed to stop another seal from being broken. They had been doing the best they could, but there were hundreds of seals that could be broken and Lilith only needed to break sixty-six. “We can’t just exorcise her, we have to kill her. And I don’t know if even the Colt can do something like that.”

Sam was quiet for a while before he said, “Dean. I think…well, this is a really bad time to say anything, I know it is, but I have to tell you something.”

Dean’s chest seized up with fear. “Oh, God, Sam, what?”

Sam took a breath. “Well, remember how you told me never to use my psychic powers?”

“Sam!” Dean roared, and pulled the Impala to the side of the road. Sam had braced himself for this conversation and how badly Dean was going to chew him out, but he knew what he was doing was necessary. If he could kill demons with the power of his mind, then who was Dean to stop him?

“It’s…not…natural!” Dean spluttered, finally making coherent words. “It’s probably hurting you on the inside, and you don’t even know it! Only bad things can come of this, Sam.”

“You say that without even really understanding what’s going on,” Sam argued. “I’m killing demons and most of the time I can save the people they possessed. It’s a good thing. I’m making use of the fact that I have demon blood inside of me and the fact that I’ll always be a freak of nature, and turning it into something helpful. Why can’t you just understand?”

“Because!” Dean shouted, running his hand over his neck. “Because demon blood never did anything good for anyone. And I’m sure that if you left it alone it’d be fine. But you’re just provoking it, Sam. You’re just asking it to eat you from the inside out and turn you into a demon yourself.”

“So you think that I would just give into evil?” Sam said quietly. “You really think that little of me, Dean?”

“Come on, Sammy, I don’t mean--”

“Okay, Dean. Okay. I’ll take what you said into consideration.”

Dean stopped talking, and bit his lip. “You’re just saying that, aren’t you?”

“Dean, let’s just get to the motel, alright? It’s late, it was a bad time to have this conversation,” Sam said tiredly, motioning down the street.

“I think it’s just a bad conversation to have,” Dean said, “but this isn’t over. You can’t just drop a bomb like that and then run away without an explanation.”

“Look, Dean, I’m exhausted, alright?” Sam snapped. “We can talk more in the morning. Hell, maybe you’re right, maybe I just need some sense talked into me, I don’t know. But you can choose whether you want to keep talking about something or not, and so I’m going to take that liberty now.”

“This isn’t over,” Dean repeated, but continued driving to the motel. They pulled into the parking lot a few minutes later. The two brothers were wordless for the rest of the night.

Sam waited until Dean was snoring before he grabbed his duffel and the keys to the Impala. Dean still didn’t know that Ruby was back, and she had already told Sam where Lilith was. All Sam needed was a hit of demon blood, and he’d be able to take down Lilith before she could spring Lucifer from his cage. Everything would be settled and Dean wouldn’t need to worry about it. Sam would prove to Dean that his psychic powers were a good thing, no matter what it took.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

The TARDIS landed, and the Doctor grabbed Clara by the hand and dragged her out. They stepped blinking into the sun. They were in a field, which stretched on unbroken by trees in all directions. The grass was tall and browned and tickled their shins.

“Where are we?” Clara asked, gazing at the scene.

“Somewhere in Kansas,” the Doctor answered grimly.

“America?” Clara asked incredulously.

The Doctor nodded. “Yeah, the angels have this weird thing about America, it’s usually easier to call them around here.”

“So you can just call them and they show up?”

“Only if they want to show up,” the Doctor said darkly. He closed his eyes. “Raphael, I’m praying to you. It’s the Doctor. I would appreciate it if you would get down here so we can have a little chat.”

“Well, well, Doctor. I couldn’t say it’s a pleasure.”

Clara gasped as three angels appeared out of thin air with a whooshing sound. The two standing closest to the Doctor were dark-skinned. The one had a sharp and severe face, with a muscular build and a glint in his eye. The other had a wide face with a sickening grin. The third angel stood closer to Clara. He had messy dark hair, blue eyes, and was wearing a faded trench coat.

“Raphael,” the Doctor said stiffly, addressing the severe-faced one. “I see you’ve brought friends.”

Raphael smiled in an unfriendly way. “This is Uriel,” he said, gesturing to the dark-skinned angel next to him, “and Castiel.” The trench-coated angel bristled at the sound of his name.

“Clara,” the Doctor said suddenly, and Clara jumped, startled by her introduction.

“Hello,” she said lamely. Raphael and Uriel paid her no attention, but Castiel paid her a small stare.

“So, Raphael, I received your message,” the Doctor continued, his eyes distrustful. “I think I deserve an explanation about all this.”

“Deserve?” Uriel smirked.

“You hardly deserve anything at all, Doctor, Enemy of the Angels,” Raphael said, his voice snide as ever.

“I never declared myself an enemy of the angels, I just made the observation that we often have opposite intentions,” the Doctor said, his tone growing impatient. “Now I want to know: what are you planning to do with Donna Noble?”

“Ah, yes,” Raphael spoke softly, “the Most Important Woman in the Universe.” He began to stride around the TARDIS, looking it up and down. “There are plans for her, indeed.”

“What are they?” the Doctor snarled. “I won’t let you hurt her.”

Uriel barked a laugh, and Raphael cocked his head. “Quite the contrary, Doctor. You’re going to do everything we say, and here’s why: the apocalypse is about to begin.”

Clara heard Castiel’s sharp intake of breath, and she felt like she stopped breathing altogether.

“You bloody idiots,” the Doctor hissed. “You bloody idiots let it get this far out of hand? I could have helped before, I could have done something.”

“We specifically did not tell you for that reason,” Raphael said. “We want the apocalypse to happen.”

“No,” Castiel whispered.

“Why?” the Doctor exploded, marching up to Raphael until he was inches from his nose. “Why would you want that? You’re supposed to protect the Earth.”

“That is why.” Raphael did not back down an inch. “We were created just to love humans, to serve humans, and we’re tired of it. When Lucifer comes, Michael will face him. Their battle will bring the apocalypse and leave the world in ruins, to be rebuilt by the angels. Mankind will be eradicated.”

“But surely God can’t want this,” Castiel shouted, speaking up for the first time.

Raphael laughed. “What has God even got to do with it anymore? God is gone, Castiel, and if you weren’t so caught up in your lovesick fantasies about the Winchester boys, you would have noticed. The angels have assisted in breaking sixty-five of the seals, and today the sixty-sixth will be broken by none other than your precious little Sam. He is preparing to kill Lilith at the St. Mary’s Convent in that dreary little Maryland town as we speak.”

Castiel looked shocked and alarmed. “I have to find Dean,” he muttered quickly, before disappearing completely.

Uriel moved forward as though he was preparing to go after Castiel, but Raphael held him back. “I’ll send some others after him,” Raphael said carelessly. “I need you here, Uriel.”

“You can’t do this!” the Doctor yelled, clutching at his hair, his sonic screwdriver, the side of the TARDIS, everything. “You can’t!”

“Yes, we are aware humans are your precious little pets,” Raphael said, sounding bored. “But we also need Donna Noble for the prophecy, and you are the only one who can get through to her.”

“And what if I refuse? Because I most certainly am,” the Doctor bellowed stoically.

Raphael gave a small smile. “We knew you would. Which is why we’re taking this one for insurance.”

Uriel’s arm appeared around Clara’s neck, half-choking her. The Doctor looked absolutely and utterly heartbroken.

Raphael inspected his nails. “If you do as we say with Donna Noble, we will allow you to spare the life of this…Clara.” He sniffed out her name disdainfully. “We will also allow you to take…well, who were they now. They are on Earth at the moment, anyway…ah, yes. I believe their names were Martha Jones, Mickey Smith, and Jack Harkness?”

Tears rushed down the Doctor’s face with fervor, and he didn’t wipe them away.

Raphael’s teeth flashed a perfect white. “Good. Now, we have an old friend waiting at Donna Noble’s house as we speak. I would like you to go and assist him in any way you can. He will explain more to you when you arrive.”

The Doctor was breathing heavily. He looked from Raphael to Clara and back again.

“She’ll be fine as long as you do what you’re told,” Raphael cooed.

“Doctor,” Clara managed to stammer.

The Doctor eyes locked on Clara’s. “Clara,” he whispered, and he moved to her and cradled her face in his hands. Clara scrabbled weakly at Uriel’s arm, still secured around her. “Clara,” he murmured again, “listen to me. It’s time for you to be very, very brave. I promise you, I will be back for you, and you will not be harmed. Do you understand?”

“Doctor,” Clara said again, her eyes shining.

The Doctor grabbed her hands in his.

Clara whispered, “I’ll be fine. You have to run now, though. Run off and save the world. Run, you clever boy, and remember. Remember me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is rough. More like a draft rather than anything finished. But I'd appreciate any feedback, especially when it comes to the plot and characterization, etc.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean drove like hellhounds were on his tail. Cas had told him everything he knew: that Sam was going to break the final seal, and that the final seal was Lilith. He also discovered Lilith’s location, and Dean knew that must be where Sam was, too. Cas had gleaned all this information mostly through unsavory means, and now half of heaven was after him for killing some of their own. As long as Cas had the angels distracted, though, Dean hoped that he could stop Sam without interference.

Dean pulls up outside St. Mary’s Convent in Ilchester, Maryland. He hopes to…well, he hopes to God that this is truly where Sam is, and that he isn’t too late.

He brings his shotgun and the demon-killing knife and slams down several sets of doors. When he finally arrives upon the scene in the chapel of the convent, though, he finds Sam, already looking horrified on the sidelines, as a dead Lilith bleeds out onto the floor and Ruby looks on in glee.

Dean takes that moment to kill Ruby with the knife and then grips onto Sam. “Sammy, what’s happening?” he shouts as a roaring wind kicks up.

“Dean, what have I done?” Sam sobs, tears coming down his face. “Dean, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Lilith’s blood began to run in a pattern, creating a large spiral on the ground. Light began to crack through the floor as the two brothers clutched each other, the one crying and the other just staring in horror.

“We’ll make it through, Sammy,” Dean shouted, his voice cracking. “We’ll find a way to get by him, we’ll make it out of this, I promise you.”

A gigantic beam of light sprang out of the floor, and Dean began preparing himself for the end.

Suddenly, Dean saw something fade into view in his peripheral vision. Dazzled by the light, he was reluctant to pay attention to it, until he felt a strong hand grasp his arm and begin pulling him and Sam away.

“Come on, don’t be stupid,” a man’s voice yelled. Dean briefly snapped his attention to where he was being yanked. He saw the back of a man in a tweed jacket struggling to open the door of what looked like one of those telephone boxes the British people used, except blue instead of red.

Dean glanced back at Sam and saw him looking just as confused and anxious as he was, but neither of them was going to resist being pulled along because it was either this or have a face-off with Satan.

The man managed to push open a door and beckoned to them. “Get in!” he practically screamed over the sound of hell’s cage opening.

Dean dove in, even though reason told him that the small box shouldn’t be able to fit three grown men. Sam, being the sasquatch that he was, had to duck to fit in the doorway. The two brothers grabbed at each other and panted as the other man slammed the door and darted past them. No noise from the outside could be heard, and as Dean’s pulse slowed, he tried to make sense of his surroundings. As soon as he realized where he was, his pulse jumped again.

He was inside a huge room, with stairs and hallways leading off to what seemed like other rooms. In the center was a huge pillar of light, surrounded by a control panel covered in buttons and levers and monitors that couldn’t make sense to anyone of this world.

“I thought we were in a tiny box,” Sam mumbled, his tears drying on his face. He stepped forward with shaky legs, and Dean was at his shoulder. “What…what is this?”

The man in the tweed jacket pulled a lever on the control panel, and the entire place jerked, sending Sam and Dean to their knees. A strange, scratchy whooshing sound began, and the place continued to jerk around for several minutes until it stopped with a bang.

If Dean hadn’t been subjected to the supernatural his entire life, he probably would have had a heart attack. Even so, he was still very freaked out.

“Who are you?” he demanded, just as Sam slurred, “Where are we?”

“Chiswick, I think,” the man answered. He finally turned his attention to them. He had dark, floppy hair, and his tweed jacket looked strange with his red bowtie. “Hi,” he said, stepping towards them and offering Sam a hand to help him to his feet. “I’m the Doctor.”

“Yeah, doctor. Doctor who?” Dean grumbled, while Sam asked, “You’re a doctor? Doctor of what?”

“Just the Doctor,” the Doctor replied briskly, also offering a hand to Dean but quickly retracting it when Dean gave him a death glare and picked himself off the ground. “You’re the Winchesters, I hope. Otherwise I crashed the wrong opening of the hell portal.” The Doctor looked away and muttered to himself, “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Yes--yeah, we’re the Winchesters,” Sam said. “I’m Sam, and this is my brother Dean.”

“Pleasure,” Dean grunted. “Now can you please tell me what the hell this--” he gestured at his surroundings--“contraption is?”

“Oh, this is my TARDIS,” the Doctor answered briskly. “Time And Relative Dimension In Space. The title itself is pretty self explanatory, I suppose. It takes you anywhere in time and space, anywhere at all.”

“And how do you come across something like a TARDIS?” Sam asked politely.

“I stole it. From my home planet, Gallifrey. Oh, you probably think I’m human. Sorry I didn’t make that clear. I’m a Time Lord. I usually like being more mysterious about explaining who I am, but I’m afraid we don’t have much time since someone just opened the devil’s cage,” the Doctor said hurriedly, with a pointed look at Sam on his last remark.

“As soon as I did it, I realized something was wrong. I didn’t know Lilith was the last seal, I swear,” Sam said, becoming upset.

The Doctor sighed. “Yes, well, I heard about the whole situation and I thought you might’ve wanted a hand at getting out of there as soon as you realized what you’d done.”

“I don’t know how I could ever thank you,” Sam admitted.

“Yes, well.” The Doctor looked at Dean. “Dean, was it? So you’re brothers. I don’t know what you were doing there, Dean, but I’m glad I was able to pick you up too since you needed it.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Dean said, still unsure of what to say about all this new information coming at him.

“Well,” the Doctor said, and suddenly his eyes were brimming with tears, “you can stay here if you like, but I have some business to attend to.” He pushed his way out of the TARDIS and into the bright sunlight.

Sam and Dean followed him and stepped out into the middle of a street lined with just about identical brick houses with well-kept lawns. The Doctor was making his way purposefully to one of these houses. Dean started to follow, but Sam held him back.

“I’m not sure we should go with him,” Sam said quietly.

“Why not?” Dean insisted. “I mean, this crazy alien guy just shows up, saves us from Lucifer, and walks away? I think we deserve to know a little bit more.”

“Dean,” Sam said warningly. “Did you see his eyes?”

“What? No. I didn’t spend my time looking into his eyes, Sam.”

Sam sighed. “Well, they were ancient. Older than you can imagine, Dean. And this looks like something he needs to do by himself.”

Dean glared at Sam, then resigned himself to lean against the strange blue box that was bigger on the inside.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

The Doctor wrung his hands nervously before ringing the doorbell. This is where Donna lived her normal life, with her mother and grandfather. This is where she was everyday, sitting and believing she was nothing important.

He heard trampling on the other side of the door, and the Doctor nearly cried when Wilfred Mott stuck his head out the door. “Yes? Who is it?”

He and the Doctor locked eyes. The Doctor realized that he had regenerated since he had last seen Wilf, and Wilf couldn’t recognize him, shouldn’t recognize him, and yet--

Wilf was squinting at him. “I know you from somewhere, don’t I?” he said quietly. His face was more worn than the last time the Doctor saw him, when he had caused the Doctor’s regeneration.

The Doctor swallowed, and gave a small smile. “Hi, Wilf,” he said in a small voice. “I’m the Doctor.”

Wilf’s eyes widened, and he backed away but didn’t slam the door. “No, you’re not,” he said. “You’re a crackpot. The Doctor’s dead, I--I killed him.” His voice cracked, and his eyes were shrouded in pain.

The Doctor advanced in the doorway. “No, Wilf, I didn’t die. I regenerated. It’s a thing Time Lords do. I have a new face, yes, but I’m still the same person.”

Wilf kept shaking his head. “No, no, the Doctor wouldn’t come back to see me after I caused him so much pain. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t. He especially wouldn’t come back where Donna could see him, because she--she can’t remember.”

The Doctor closed his eyes at those words. “It’s me, Wilf, and I’ve come about Donna,” he told him. The Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, and buzzed it, so Wilf gasped and immediately flung his arms around the Doctor.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Wilf sobbed into his shoulder. “It’s a miracle, it really is.” Wilf pulled himself together very quickly, though, and said thickly, “But you’re here about Donna. You need to see her? Is…is everything alright?”

The Doctor couldn’t bring himself to tell Wilf the truth. “It’s…need-to-know,” he said cautiously. And Wilf, glorious Wilf, didn’t bother pressing him. The Doctor continued, “I’m actually supposed to be meeting someone here. You haven’t come across anyone else, have you?”

Wilf frowned. “Well, not quite. Donna’s mother is out, and Donna’s up in her room taking a nap, I think. One of my old friends is over though, we were just having a cup of tea. He’s a stargazer like me,” Wilf added with a sad smile.

The Doctor passed Wilf and went into the sitting room, where he came upon an older man, sitting primly in an armchair. The Doctor shivered as soon as he came into the presence of this man. He had slick black hair, and extremely high cheekbones that made his face appear gaunt. His eyes were dark and seemed to be a manifestation of despair itself. At the sight of the Doctor, he stood, leaning lightly on a cane.

“Hello, Doctor,” he said smoothly.

“You know each other?” Wilf asked incredulously, coming into the room behind the Doctor.

“Not quite,” the Doctor said, eyeing the man. “I don’t know him, but I think he knows me.”

“Indeed I do,” the man drawled, stepping forward. He held out his hand to shake the Doctor’s. The Doctor gripped it warily, and felt like the happiness was being sucked out of him. He drew back his hand at the other man’s ice cold touch, drawing a smirk from the other man.

“Wilf,” the Doctor muttered, “do you trust me?”

“With my life,” Wilf muttered back, unfaltering.

“I’m going to ask you to leave,” the Doctor said. “Can you do that? Can you do that for me, please?”

“But what about Donna--”

“She’ll be fine.” The Doctor didn’t look into Wilf’s eyes. “But you must go, Wilf.”

Wilf hesitated. Of course he hesitated, the Doctor was asking him to leave his granddaughter alone with an alien and a person he apparently barely knew. But Wilf was always loyal to the end. Eventually, finally, Wilf left the house, closing the door gently behind him.

“Who are you?” the Doctor spat out at the click of the latch.

“Raphael sent me,” the man said, tapping his cane on the floor. “I am Death.”

The Doctor bristled. “Raphael sent you just to kill Donna? I won’t allow it.”

“Relax.” Death put his hand on the Doctor’s shoulder, and the Doctor shook it off. “I am here for different reasons, but you and I actually might be working toward a common goal.”

“What would that be?” the Doctor snarled. “What would I have in common with Death?”

Death positively bared his teeth at this. “Oh, Doctor. I think you and I have a lot more in common than you would hope to believe. But let us not talk about the dozens of planets on which the word doctor has come to mean great warrior or bringer of destruction. And certainly, let us not talk about the Time War, where you practically became me. No, we have more pressing matters, don’t we?”

The Doctor’s teeth were gritted, but he had no words to counter what Death had just said. Death seemed pleased with this. “Now we can get somewhere, can’t we?” He strolled idly around the room. “I am old, Doctor. I may even be older than God himself. I am Death, and I am feared and hated, but I am also quite necessary.” Death’s eyes grew stormy. “I keep balance. That is all I want: balance.” Now he faced the Doctor. “The apocalypse will not bring balance. Wiping out every species on Earth will not bring balance.” Death paused, then seemed to switch tracks. “Do you know how the angels work, Doctor? How they appear on Earth?”

“They use vessels,” the Doctor answered. “They take over people’s bodies and use them as their own.”

“Precisely.” Death tipped his head toward him. “So have you met Dean Winchester?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Well, I happen to know that Dean Winchester is meant to be Michael’s vessel.” When the Doctor’s eyes filled with horror, Death let out a small chuckle. “Yes, it helps to be acquaintances with Death, doesn’t it? I am quite in the know about everything around here, whether the angels want me to be or not.”

“Does Dean know this?”

“No, not yet, but I think with his annoying little angel friend Castiel flitting about, he is bound to learn soon enough. But you aren’t quite as concerned with Mr. Winchester as you are with Ms. Noble.”

“What does Donna have to do with anything? Please, tell me,” the Doctor begged.

“I was asked by Raphael to meet with you, and collectively use our powers to knock down the walls in Donna’s head,” Death said. “Every memory would come flooding back into her mind, and thus she would become unstable, and quite susceptible, and oh, so powerful.”

“She would be unstoppable,” the Doctor whispered.

“Which is why she would be the perfect vessel for Lucifer.”

The Doctor was speechless. Finally he breathed, “No.”

“Oh, yes. However, Raphael was not relying on one fact: I do not take orders from anyone, certainly not orders that will destroy the natural balance of things. And so I have reached my conclusion: together, we shall weaken the walls of Donna’s mind, just enough that she remembers you, and she remembers how to fight the good fight.”

“And then?”

“I’m afraid that’s up to you to figure out. But I have heard that Donna Noble is one of the most strong-willed people in the universe, and so is Dean Winchester. And Doctor, if anyone can come up with a way out of this, it is you.”

“So Death is helping us.”

“Death is on your side, yes.”

And with those words, the Doctor and Death went up into Donna’s room. They found her lying on her face on her bed, snoring.

Death grabbed the Doctor’s hand, and the Doctor didn’t pull away.

“Now I’m going to go in. She will remember you, she will remember several of your adventures, but she will not remember the DoctorDonna. She will not remember that she is the Most Important Woman in the Universe; I’m afraid you’ll have to convince her of that once more.”

“Sure,” the Doctor breathed. Anything to be with Donna once again.

With that, Death reached into Donna’s mind. “Don’t scratch the wall any more, or the results will be catastrophic,” he breathed. “Don’t scratch the wall.”


	5. Chapter 5

Sam and Dean stood at attention as the Doctor came out of the house a while later, but carrying an unconscious woman with fiery red hair.

“Could you get the door to the TARDIS?” he asked, looking up at them with his ancient eyes. Sam quickly obliged, and he and Dean followed the Doctor and the woman into the TARDIS and shut the door.

“So who is this?” Dean inquired, watching the woman as the Doctor set her on the floor of the TARDIS.

The Doctor jumped, and he seemed to look at Dean with new eyes. “She’ll wake up soon,” he said. “This is Donna Noble.”

“Donna Noble,” Dean repeated. “Okay, what’s she doing here?”

The Doctor chewed his tongue for a moment, before saying, “She’s wrapped up in this, just as much as you are.”

“What, did an angel pull her out of hell too?” Dean half-joked.

“Not quite,” the Doctor said softly, then appeared startled. “What, is that what happened to you?”

“Yeah. His name’s Cas. I guess this means we’re still exclusive then,” Dean deadpanned.

The Doctor gasped. “Castiel. Yes, he was the one who left Raphael to go…” his eyes seemed to travel around Dean’s face, inspecting every inch of him until Dean felt uncomfortable. “…to go and find you.” The Doctor then pressed a few buttons on the control panel--the “TARDIS mainframe” Dean heard him mumble--before he said, “Castiel is on our side of this.”

“Side? What are the sides?” Sam queried. “I mean, it’s all the angels in heaven--and us--against just Lucifer, right?”

“Wrong,” the Doctor said. “You really don’t know anything, it seems.”

“Then tell us,” Dean growled.

The Doctor shook his head. “I don’t think it’s my place. I think our paths crossed by accident at this point, and I’ll most likely run into you later when we both know more, but for now I think I should leave you in hands more capable of dealing with you.” The Doctor pulled a lever, and the TARDIS lurched for several moments until stopping.

The Doctor brushed past Sam and Dean and opened the door into an alleyway. “Cardiff,” he said shortly, before striding out of the alley into the sunlight. Sam and Dean, after casting a glance at Donna, followed him.

The Doctor glanced back at Sam and Dean. “Won’t be long now,” he said matter-of-factly. Sam and Dean exchanged a look, not knowing what they were waiting for.

Gradually, a faint noise came to their ears. It grew louder and louder, until it could be perceived as a cry: “Doooctoooooor!”

“Sam, Dean, this is Captain Jack Harkness,” the Doctor said drily.

Captain Jack Harkness came sprinting around a bend in the buildings, screaming the Doctor’s name as his coat whipped out behind him. His frenzied eyes passed right over the three of them, but Dean couldn’t tell what he was looking for.

“Jack,” the Doctor called to him. Their eyes met, and Jack slowed his pace to a trot. He came up to the Doctor.

“Who might you be?” he asked, not wary in the least but boundlessly curious.

“The Doctor, Jack,” the Doctor said in an exasperated voice. “I’ve regenerated.”

Jack’s face split into a wide grin. “Doctor?” he shrieked, and picked up the Doctor into a bear hug.

The Doctor couldn’t stop a tired smile. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Jack?”

Jack set him down, his face serious. “You just left me at the bar that one night…with that guy, Alonso. And I haven’t seen you since.”

The Doctor nodded. “Yes, I realize I should have kept in touch. But listen, it’s important.”

Jack nodded. “Anything you need me to do, I’ll do.” Dean was struck by the absolute loyalty that this man had for the Doctor.

The Doctor sighed, and said, “It’s Donna. Something’s happening with the angels, but to make a long story short, I had to make her remember.”

Jack bit his lip. “Everything?”

“She doesn’t remember the DoctorDonna. But it was dangerous for her to remember anything at all, and now she’s practically a time bomb,” the Doctor said heavily. “But the angels need her for…well, reasons,” he said, and jerked his head towards Sam and Dean.

Jack seemed to notice Sam and Dean for the first time. A smile flashed onto his face, and he held out his hand. “Hi,” he said in a smooth voice, shaking Dean’s hand and then Sam’s. “Captain Jack Harkness.”

The Doctor hit him in the shoulder. “Not now, Jack.”

Jack shrugged. “What? I was just shaking their hands.”

“Just…no.”

That aspect of the conversation ended, leaving Dean with the uneasy feeling he had just been hit on.

“Jack, I have another problem, though.” The Doctor fidgeted. “I’m supposed to hand over Donna and Dean to the angels--”

“Hold on, what?” Dean interjected, but the Doctor waved him off.

“--because they’re currently holding my friend Clara in a sort of…hostage situation.”

“Not for long,” Jack said, bouncing on his heels. “If you give me a couple minutes, I can bring you something that might help.”

“Okay, Jack.”

Jack was off and running again, and Dean took the opportunity to explode at the Doctor.

“I know I’m supposed to be here to do ‘God’s will,’ but I don’t see what handing me over to the angels has to do with it!”

The Doctor eyed him gravely. “I hate to break it to you, Dean, but I don’t think God had much to do with you being…what? Brought back from hell? It’s not his will the angels are playing out, it’s their own.”

“Yeah, I figured as much, which is why I don’t want anything to do with them. If we’re going to stop Lucifer, we’re going to do it our way.”

“I agree,” the Doctor said. “But like I said before, I don’t think I’m the one who should be explaining all of this to you.” He watched the street corner, and once he saw Jack running back, weighed down with something, he said, “As soon as I’m gone, I think you should call Castiel.”

“As soon as you’re gone?” Sam said incredulously. “So you’re just leaving us here?”

“It’s for the best,” the Doctor said. “We’ll meet again soon, I’m sure.”

“Here they are,” Jack panted as he stopped in front of the Doctor. The Doctor eyed what Jack was holding. They looked like…guns. Dean was surprised. The Doctor didn’t really strike him as the violent type.

“We have to go, Jack,” the Doctor said urgently.

“Ready when you are, Doctor,” he said excitedly. The two of them raced through the front doors of the TARDIS, and with its strange whizzing noise, the TARDIS faded from view.

Sam and Dean were left with their mouths agape. Eventually, Sam said, “He just left us here. In the middle of…England.” He shot a quick glimpse at Dean. “We need to call Castiel.”

“Definitely.” Dean looked up to the sky. “Cas, get your feathery ass to England right now.”

“Dean.” Sam and Dean whipped around and saw Cas leaning in the alleyway, clutching his side. He was covered in blood. It soaked through his shirt and ran in rivulets down his face.

“Cas?” Dean said, alarmed, and moved automatically toward Cas.

“It’s not…safe for me to be around you,” Cas grunted, sliding slowly down the alley wall. “The angels are looking for you. I’ve been fighting off the ones that get close, but with me here, they’ll have no doubt.”

“Damn it, Cas,” Dean hissed, rubbing his jaw. “We need answers, and pronto.”

“Dean,” Sam admonished, “he’s obviously not in any state to answer any questions.”

“I’ll do my best,” Cas groaned, moving his hand from his side, looking faintly sick when it came away completely red.

“What am I doing here, man?” Dean said, shaking his head. “I thought it was God’s will that you pulled me out for.”

“So did I,” Cas answered. “I’ve been gleaning information, and I think I understand what’s going on. The angels want to destroy the Earth with the apocalypse so they can have it for themselves. The apocalypse is brought on by the fight between Michael and Lucifer. Michael and Lucifer need human vessels, though, and that’s where you come in.” Cas shifted, and gritted his teeth when more blood came oozing out of his wounds. “Dean, you are the Michael sword. You are Michael’s vessel.”

“Well, maybe I don’t want to be Michael’s vessel,” Dean said automatically.

Cas shifted. “That’s the whole catch. A vessel has to say yes to being possessed by an angel. So conceivably, if you kept denying Michael, it could buy us some time.”

“And Lucifer needs a vessel, too,” Sam concluded.

“I heard the name when I was still in good graces with Raphael,” Cas said. “Donna Noble.”

“Donna Noble?” Sam gasped. “The Doctor has Lucifer’s vessel, then!”

“So you’ve met the Doctor.” Cas’s breathing was becoming more labored. “He and Donna Noble had a history, and he is the reason that she became the choice for Lucifer’s vessel. Tragic, but true. But the Doctor is not our enemy in this. He doesn’t want to see the human race destroyed any more than we do. I just hope we’ll meet up with him again.”

The three were quiet for a few moments, until Dean said, “Hey, Cas…so what did happen with Donna and the Doctor?”

Cas sighed. “I don’t have all the details,” he said, raising his eyes to the sky, “but I know it has to do with Donna’s mind becoming almost merged with the Doctor’s…”

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

“Ready, Doctor?”

The Doctor shifted as he held his weapon. “And you said this was made to stun angels, right? Only stun them?”

Jack laughed. “Of course. There’s no way in heck I’d hand you a lethal weapon, Doctor. You’re reserved enough as it is to use a practically painless method of getting your friend back.”

The Doctor shifted. “I just never thought…I never thought it would come to this,” he said sadly, looking at Donna on the floor of the TARDIS, her mind still poking at the new memories that had come flooding through the wall.

“Come on,” Jack said, and opened the doors of the TARDIS.

They were back in the field in which Clara had first been taken.

The Doctor took a deep breath. “And you said Martha and Mickey?”

“I sent them a message,” Jack replied. “They’ve been making preparations just in case the apocalypse really is nigh. You know Martha, she practically is the British government. They’re loading the nuclear bunkers and warning citizens and everything.”

The Doctor nodded. “Good.” Martha. Defender of humanity, as always. He closed his eyes. “Raphael, it’s been done.”

No sooner did the two angels and one human appear than did Jack shoot both of them. Raphael and Uriel both collapsed, alive but unconscious, while Clara fell over too, still tight in Uriel’s grip.

“Um, Doctor,” she said, kicking her feet a little bit.

The Doctor dropped his stun gun, feeling guilty pleasure that Jack had done all the stunning and not him. Jack walked over, wrenched Uriel from off of Clara, and swept her into his arms.

“Hi. Captain Jack Harkness.”

“Jack.”

“Sorry, Doctor.”

Jack put Clara back on the ground, and she smoothed out her dress. “Nice to meet you, Jack,” she said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear and giving a shy smile.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Well, Clara, you have a bit of catching up to do,” he said.

“I never really followed in the first place,” Clara admitted, and the three of them returned to the TARDIS.


	6. Chapter 6

Dean dreamed that he was four years old again.

He was in the kitchen, helping his mother make pie, covered in flour. Every so often she would sweep him up in a hug and kiss his forehead.

After a while, his father came down the stairs, carrying Sammy. Sammy was only a couple months old, and he was so small that Dean almost couldn’t believe that one day Sammy would grow to be as tall as Dean was at that moment.

Dean sat between his father and mother at the dinner table with Sammy in a high chair to eat the pie. Dean had to sit on a few encyclopedias to reach the tabletop. The apples oozed out of the side of the pie, and it was warm and gooey, which was Dean’s favorite way to eat it.

Dean ran his tongue over the roof of his mouth, and was surprised by a slight metallic taste. Ignoring it, he took another bite of the pie, until the taste became stronger and stronger. It covered up the sweet taste of apples. Dean stared hard at his pie, and slowly it shifted until the apple filling turned a sickening red color. Dean tried to call out for his parents, but they had left the table. Sammy was trapped in his high chair, trying to escape, but not before some blood dripped from the ceiling and landed on his lips. Confused, Sammy licked it up. Dean turned his eyes heavenward and his eyes found his mother, pinned to the ceiling, cut open and bleeding until a fire erupted around her and--

“Now that I’ve got your attention, I’d like a quick word.”

Dean found himself in the cheap motel bed he’d fallen asleep in. He scrambled out on top of the covers. Sam was still sleeping soundly in the bed beside him. Dean looked at the far wall and his heart jumped into his throat when he saw Cas, standing almost motionless, staring at Dean.

“Isn’t that adorable? He watches you while you sleep. Actually, now that you mention it, it’s more creepy than cute.”

It definitely wasn’t Sam or Cas that was talking, but Dean couldn’t figure out who was.

“Please, Dean. It’s me, your new buddy Michael. I thought we should make an acquaintance.”

“Where are you?” Dean said hoarsely.

“Well, I’m sort of all around. You see, I haven’t taken a vessel yet. Generally this would mean that my voice would shatter eardrums and glass, but the funny thing about dreams is that you can twist them around and truly make anything possible.”

Dean swallowed. “Wow. An angel with a sense of humor. First time for everything, I guess.”

“Like I said, Dean, I can twist anything around.”

“So I’m guessing that you’re here to talk about wearing me as a prom dress.”

“If that’s how you want to phrase it, yes. I was thinking more like wearing you as my battle armor and being raised into eternal glory, but it’s just like a Winchester to decide on imagery that pleases the whims of a teenage girl.”

“You know, for trying to convince me to join with you, you’re being kind of a dick,” Dean growled.

“If I wasn’t a dick, would you respect me?”

Dean didn’t have an answer.

“That’s what I thought. You see, Dean, you have a strange disposition to gravitate only towards those that you feel can hold their own. You feel protectiveness, but only when you fancy to. So, speaking like that, if I were to be submissive and kind and gentle when dealing with you, you would only blow me off. If I were to be too aggressive and simply attempt to torture everyone you hold dear until you say yes, you would die trying to fight me. But this way, I have your undivided attention. It’s not too subtle, but it’s not too forward. It’s just where I need it to be for you to listen.”

“Making me watch my mom burn on the ceiling isn’t considered being too forward?”

“Well, I needed an attention-getter so I could get you engrossed enough in the dream that I could establish a link. This dream stuff is tricky business, Dean, and it’s a pain to get it right, but in the end it’s so worth it.”

“It doesn’t matter what you say,” Dean said gruffly. “I’ll never say yes to you. I don’t plan on ever being worn as a meat suit, no way.”

“I’ve got eternity, Dean. You’ve got weeks at best. Little Lucy’s not going to wait for me forever.”

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Donna was walking down her street. Her mum had taken the car that day, leaving Donna no choice but to walk to work. Donna checked her watch and broke into a jog. She couldn’t be late. She was only a temp; she was expendable, no doubt.

Gradually she slowed to a walk again, out of breath. Maybe she should make good on that free gym membership she got with her benefits at the company. Maybe she’d go today. Then again, maybe she’d just go tomorrow…

Her feet were feeling a bit sore because of her shoes. She was contemplating taking them off when a car pulled up beside her, and a perky female voice said, “Need a lift?”

Donna looked into the window of the car--after all, hitching a ride with a stranger would be stupid and dangerous, especially when her workplace was only a dozen more blocks away or so. But something in the woman’s eyes, and her perfect smile, sort of put Donna in a daze.

“Sure,” she said, and hurried around to the passenger’s side. She slammed the car door and leaned back on the headrest, and exhaled loudly. “You might’ve just saved me my job. Thanks for that.” The other woman grinned as she drove down the street, a bit recklessly and over the speed limit, Donna might add.

“It’s no problem at all,” the woman said as she swerved around a couple pedestrians crossing the street to blow through a red light.

Donna was confused as to why she wasn’t panicking, but she felt calm in this woman’s presence. “I work down the road a little ways more…”

The woman shot her a glance, her eyes wild and mysterious. “Oh, we’re not going to work today, Donna.”

Donna sat up in her seat? “What?” she spluttered. “Are you abducting me?” She began pounding on the windows, shouting. “I can’t bloody believe it. Not today.”

The other woman grabbed Donna’s arm. “Whoa! Calm down there, no need to give yourself an aneurism.”

“What’s your name?” Donna demanded.

The woman shrugged. “Wow. I’m a little hurt you forgot considering you named me yourself.”

Donna froze. “Wh-what?” she said breathlessly.

The woman flipped her long blond ponytail over her shoulder and turned her pretty face back towards Donna. “I’ll jog your memory. My name’s Jenny.” She jerked her attention back to the road to narrowly avoid rear-ending a car. “And I’m taking you to see Dad.”

...Donna opened her eyes and gasped for air like she had come up from underwater.


	7. Chapter 7

“Dean.”

Dean’s eyes cracked open. His first sensation was of being shaken; his second was that he was absolutely covered in sweat. His clothes and sheets were soaked through. His mouth felt parched, and his lips were chapped.

He finally got a hazy vision of a baggy white shirt, loose blue tie, and ragged brown trench coat above him. Cas’s face came into view.

“Cas?” he croaked.

Cas shifted uncomfortably. “It appeared you were having a nightmare. I thought it best to wake you.”

Dean nodded slowly. “It was…it was Michael,” he said quietly. “Michael talked to me through my dream.”

Cas made an affirmative noise. “It takes the power of an archangel to do that. He will be persistent, Dean, you can count on that.”

Dean rubbed his eyes. It was still dark out, and Sam was still sleeping, his body spread out across the entire bed.

“Don’t tell Sammy, okay?” he said. “I don’t want him to worry about anything. The kid’s got enough on his mind, what with setting Lucifer free and everything.”

Cas squinted at Dean. “I don’t think it’s wise for you two to keep anything from each other at this point--”

“Please, Cas.”

“Okay.”

“And, Cas, one more thing.”

“Yes, Dean?”

“Don’t watch me while I sleep. It’s creepy, man.”

“Okay.”

The nights passed and Michael continued tormenting Dean through his dreams.

There wasn’t a night that Cas spent away from Dean’s side.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

“Donna.”

Donna felt a steadying hand on her shoulder as she hyperventilated. Memories were flooding back, memories that couldn’t be hers, that shouldn’t be hers--and yet they were hers: she could feel every emotion, every burst of happiness, every drag of heartbreak, she could feel the heat of Pompeii, she could feel the biting cold of the Ood planet, she had experienced it all, she was there.

“Doctor.”

She clutched at the hand on her shoulder, and it was unfamiliar. She saw her surroundings; she knew it was the TARDIS, but it was unfamiliar also. She saw the face of a girl who was unfamiliar, and she just about lost it.

“What’s going on?” she screeched, jumping to her feet. She felt a bit unsteady, so she grabbed onto the TARDIS mainframe for support. “This isn’t the TARDIS, and this--you aren’t the Doctor, and who the bloody hell is this girl, and--”

Donna stopped dead as she caught sight of a face. The face was lurking in the shadows, obviously trying to stay out of the way, unsure, wary of her, but when their eyes linked, the corners of the face’s mouth were tugged upward, and Donna felt calm envelop her, because that face, it was ingrained in her, pulling something from her, unraveling her bit by bit--

Then a splitting headache wracked through her skull, and she collapsed to the ground, whimpering, wishing it would all be over.

“It was Jack. Clara, get Jack away from here.”

Did she know a Jack? Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack. It rolled through her head easy enough, but did the face match the name? Did the name match the face? Jack, Jack, Jack.

“Donna, please calm down. It’s me, it’s the Doctor. I told you I could change my face, right? Well, I did, and this is what I look like now. I might not be as suave as you remember, but I’m the same person, do you understand? Donna?”

Gradually, her headache subsided, leaving Donna feeling only slightly queasy.

She gained control of herself, and looked up at the Doctor. “A bit younger than I remember,” she said, grabbing a railing and hoisting herself to her feet again. She turned her head left, then right. “It’s a bit darker in here than I remember, too,” she said

“I did a little redecorating,” the Doctor said, backing up from her again. He hesitated, then said, “So, what else do you remember?”

Donna frowned at him. “Are we playing some sort of game? Would that help explain why two seconds ago we were on the planet Midnight and now all of the sudden I’m in a brand new TARDIS with a brand new Doctor and a…girl?” She gestured to the girl--Clara--now standing at the doorway to one of the hallways.

“How are you so sure he’s the Doctor?” Clara asked curiously, coming forward.

Donna shrugged. “I dunno, I can just feel it.” She grinned. “I mean, if I’m gonna be with this man forever, I would probably do well to know what he looks like at his best--and his worst,” she added, eyeing the bowtie.

The Doctor saw where her eyes strayed and yelped, “Hey, bowties are cool.”

“Yeah, and Converse go well with suits and long coats,” Donna teased. Her lightheartedness faded slightly when she asked, “So who are you, anyway?”

Clara stepped forward and held out her hand. “Um, I’m Clara Oswald,” she said.

“And how’d you pick her up?” Donna asked the Doctor, jerking her thumb at Clara.

“It’s a long story, Donna,” the Doctor said.

Donna crossed her arms. “I got time.”

Donna was feeling incredibly stubborn, but then she noticed how absolutely upset the Doctor looked, and she decided she would pry at it later. She dropped the subject for now.

“Never mind. But there was someone else here, wasn’t there?” She grasped in her head to try and find the face, the name, the face, the name she had just had moments before, but it was like trying to grab a watermelon covered in Vaseline in a swimming pool. It was bloody near impossible.

“Yes, he, uh, left,” Clara said quickly. “Just someone we’d helped along, but he’s gone now.”

“Uh huh.” Donna chewed her lip, before saying, “Alright, is anyone gonna address the elephant in the room? Like why Spaceman here got plastic surgery done?”

“It’s complicated, Donna, and I promise I’ll get around to explaining to you,” the Doctor said, “but first I want to know what you remember. Please.”

Donna sighed and rolled her eyes. “Alright. Um, let’s see. I met you on my wedding day. Then I lost you. Then I found you again. Um, Agatha Christie, you had a daughter but not through natural means, Martha Jones is kind of awesome and she moved on after you, I mean, her loss and my gain. And then there were the Ood--”

“Let’s not talk about the Ood,” the Doctor said hurriedly.

“I mean, we don’t have to. I grew fond of them after a while, but at first their little tentacles kind of creeped me out, if you know what I mean.”

The Doctor was shaking his head. “What?” Donna said, irritated.

“It’s just…it’s good to have you back, Donna.”


	8. Chapter 8

"We need to find the Doctor.”

At Dean’s words, Sam looked up from his laptop. “You think so?”

Dean absentmindedly loaded and unloaded the bullets in his handgun. “I don’t know what’s going on at that end. Maybe Lucifer’s already got Donna, we don’t know.”

“We probably don’t want to know.” Sam turned his attention back to his laptop. “I mean, if Lucifer’s here, then he’s going to be gunning for you, Michael’s vessel. And we don’t want to put ourselves in unnecessary danger.”

Dean shifted in his seat a little bit, before saying, “No, we really should find the Doctor. If there’s a time to make a stand, then it’s probably whenever Lucifer’s just getting used to his vessel and is weak.”

Sam sighed. “I guess that makes sense.” He shut his laptop and stretched. “I suppose Michael’s only going to get more and more persuasive with you anyway. I mean, not saying you cave easy or anything, but an archangel’s probably got a few tricks up his sleeve to get what he wants.”

Dean shivered as he thought of the dreams Michael was sending him, and exactly how persuasive Michael was. But the thought of how powerful he and Michael would be together didn’t compare to the thought of destroying the world. Not yet, anyway.

Dean would like to say he had gotten used to people appearing out of nowhere at that point, but he’d have been lying. Two people just materialized into the motel room; one was obviously Cas, as could be seen by the trench coat, but the other was a woman Dean had never seen before. She had…well, to be completely honest in describing her, she had the most curvaceous body Dean had ever seen. Her eyes had an ever-present mischievous glint, and her hair was high and curly and sprang off her shoulders with exuberance that Dean would have thought impossible were he not staring it in the face. She was dressed in leather and wielding a gun.

Sam stopped breathing, and Dean knew he was thinking the same thing.

The appearance of this woman, however, was slightly put off by Cas crumpling to the ground and simultaneously vomiting and coughing up blood.

The woman immediately went to assist him, rubbing his back and mumbling soothingly to him. When it appeared he had finished, she helped him lie down on the bed, and went into the bathroom and grabbed a towel. She cleaned his face from the vomit and blood, before setting the towel over the mess Cas had made on the ground. Finally, she turned to Sam and Dean, who were still gawking over what had just happened.

“Thanks for nothing,” she said.

Dean cleared his throat. “What’s--what’s wrong with Cas?”

The woman sighed. “The poor thing used up the last of his power to find me, because apparently you poor saps needed me. That already took enough of a toll on him, traveling through space and time like that, but I had to get him here off of my vortex manipulator.” She flashed a thing on her wrist. “It’s rough on those who aren’t used to it.”

“So, who are you exactly?” Sam said, rising from his chair.

“Professor River Song,” she said. When she saw that her title made no impression on them, she added, “I’m also the Doctor’s wife.”

“The Doctor has a wife?” Dean snorted. “Didn’t seem like the type, but he did well.”

Cas coughed feebly, and a little blood trickled down the side of his mouth. River wiped it away with her thumb. “So you’re the Michael sword.” She looked Dean up and down, before making an unimpressed noise in the back of her throat. Dean deflated a little.

Sam made one of his signature bitchfaces. “We don’t have time for squabbling. Why are you here, Ms. Song?”

River laughed. “It’s River, dear. And Cas here was smart enough to know that I was the only person who could help you find the Doctor.”

“That’d be great,” Dean said, also standing up now. “We think it’s time to make a move on Lucifer.”

“Well, don’t get too excited yet,” River warned. “The Doctor’s not an angel. He can’t just show up when he hears you calling. I have to try and contact him, and if he gets the message, he comes. If he doesn’t get it, he doesn’t.”

“Yeah, well, this is urgent, and that’s a little too much guesswork,” Dean grumbled.

River moved quickly until she was literally nose-to-nose with Dean. “Listen here,” she whispered softly. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with. I do. If I were you, I’d do a little less talking and a little more listening.” She gave him a small wink, and moved away just as quickly. Dean felt a little lightheaded.

River moved to the window of the motel room. She ducked her head close to her vortex manipulator, punched in a few things, and even whispered to it. After several minutes of this, she turned back to face the two men and the angel.

“I’ve sent him coordinates,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll get here as soon as he can.”

“Thank you so much, River,” Sam said politely.

“Don’t thank me, thank your rebel angel,” River said. She gazed down the street outside the window of the motel. “He’s going to be a few minutes anyway. I might as well make a coffee run.” Upon noticing the looks she received from Sam and Dean, she smiled a twinkling smile and said, “What? Just because I travel through time and space and have seen things that your minds can’t even comprehend, doesn’t mean I don’t love a good espresso.”

“I’ll go with you,” Sam said, as though he didn’t even mean for the words to come out.

River smiled. “I hope you have money, dear. I’m afraid I spent all mine at a pawn shop nine billion light years away, two hundred thousand years from now.”

River and Sam were already buddy-buddy before they walked out the door. Dean almost wanted to go after them too, but a slight snore told him he’d be otherwise preoccupied. He took a look at Cas and for a moment almost felt like giving up. Angels didn’t sleep. It appeared Cas was being cut off from Heaven, his power source. But he had already done so much for them this far, and that made Dean resolve that he had to stick with this through the end.

“Thanks, Cas,” he whispered.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Donna had fought and fought with the Doctor so he would tell her about what had happened to her that had made her apparently lose time. The Doctor, however, refused every single time, saying he’d tell her later, but never grew impatient with her. She decided to stop asking, because even though she was stubborn as a mule, she trusted the man with her life. If he wasn’t telling her something, there must be a sort of good reason, anyway.

Donna was shown into a bedroom by Clara, and she lay down to sleep because what else could she do? She hadn’t realized she was so tired, and so she drifted off quickly. She hadn’t expected to have such vivid dreams, though.

She found herself waking, not entirely sure if she was in a dream or not anymore. She sat up in her bed as she saw a dark shadow at the foot of her bed.

“And he says the TARDIS is bloody safe, he does,” she shrieked, grabbing the lamp off the table at her bedside and preparing to whack the intruder with it.

“No, no, no, no, Donna, it’s me.”

The lamp slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground. She didn’t know if the light bulb broke; she was more concerned with the fact that the Doctor was standing in front of her.

But it wasn’t the bow-tied, tweed-jacketed, floppy-haired, young-blooded Doctor she had recently met. It was _her_ Doctor; the long-coated, Converse-wearing, messy-haired, fast-talking Doctor that she had met on that fateful day she was transported against her will into the TARDIS. _Her_ Doctor. The one that just wanted, not _to_ mate, but _a_ mate.

This Doctor smiled. “Hello, Donna,” he said, that smirk evident on his face.

“Doctor?” she breathed, scrambling out of her bed and reaching out to him.

He grabbed her hand. “Yeah, it’s me. Never thought I’d see you again.”

“I never thought I’d see _you_ again,” Donna said. “But then I did, but it wasn’t…it wasn’t you, it was a future you I guess, and he wears a _bowtie._ ”

This Doctor looked disturbed by that fact. “A bowtie?”

“He says they’re cool.”

“I’m not too sure about that.”

They stood together for several moments before Donna asked, “So, this is a dream, right?”

The Doctor shook his head. “No, no. We just got off the planet Midnight, and we were going off on another adventure when you said you were tired. It looked like you were having a bad dream, so I was going to wake you.”

Donna’s eyes practically rolled around in her head. “Yeah, I thought we’d just gotten off of there! But then future you said some time had passed, and I was really confused because I couldn’t remember any of it. But this makes a lot more sense.”

Something in this Doctor’s eyes flashed, but Donna couldn’t catch what it was. Anyway, she was simply relieved that something finally made sense to her. This was certainly where she belonged, with this Doctor and this life. I mean, that was where it had left off, and that was where it should continue, right?

This Doctor was certainly real, anyway; she could feel the softness of his skin, the roughness of his coat. And she was certainly awake; she pinched herself just to make sure. This was reality. Donna knew it. It only felt right.

“So, no more talk of future-Doctor, alright?” this Doctor said, tipping his head at her. “This is real, Donna. This is real life, because you are extraordinary here.”

Donna felt something tugging at the back of her mind, like a warning, but she ignored it. It was probably just her low self esteem again. “I’m nothing special,” she said for the umpteenth time.

“You are,” this Doctor said, “and I wish I could only make you believe it, if you’d only take what I said to heart and let me in. If you only said yes to me, Donna.”

_Something’s not right,_ the little voice in Donna’s head said. _He sounds more and more like a pedophile by the second, Donna, something’s not right._

_But it is right,_ Donna argued with herself. _I said I was never gonna leave him, and I didn’t. He never moved on and found another girl, and another face._

“Just say you’re special, Donna, say yes to me.”

_This bloody isn’t right, Donna!_

Donna rolled her eyes. “Okay, Doctor. Yes. Now would you bloody stop asking?”

Suddenly, Donna’s entire world, even her feeling of existence, vanished from underneath her, and she was falling.


	9. Chapter 9

Soon after River and Sam returned with coffee, the telltale noise that Dean now associated with the TARDIS floated in through the cracked door.

Sam knocked over his coffee in anticipation as he sprang to his feet. River calmly stood, her face revealing a look of a little girl who just got told she was pretty by an innocent little boy. Dean kept his seat on the bed next to Cas, who had been awakened by the noise and was currently looking with wide eyes from Dean to the door.

The door burst open, revealing the Doctor looking harried. He was followed closely by Jack and a girl Dean hadn’t seen yet.

The Doctor looked around, and pointed at them all quickly. “Clara. Jack. River. Sam. Dean. Castiel. I’m the Doctor. Now we all know each other’s names so we can get down to business.”

“Jack,” River said, winking.

“River, gorgeous as always,” Jack murmured, kissing her hand.

This distracted the Doctor momentarily. “You two know each other?” he said in amazement.

“You don’t keep tabs on me all the time, sweetie,” River said, and Jack laughed.

The Doctor seemed a little upset by this, but instead he said, “Manhattan?”

“A while ago.”

Satisfied by this answer, the Doctor turned his attention back to the motley group before him. “Donna’s awake,” he said. “Confused, but all in all still very…sassy.”

“She’s not perfectly okay,” Jack said. “Don’t forget how she went catatonic when she saw my face.”

“Well, that’s to be expected, Jack, it was stupid of me to ever let you out there. You’re a memory that she doesn’t know she has, and we need it to stay that way until this mess blows over,” the Doctor said rapidly.

“So she’s fine? Doesn’t seem, I don’t know, Satanic or anything?” Dean said straight-faced.

The Doctor shook his head. “No, and I don’t see it being a problem. Donna would never crack if she knew that Lucifer was pressuring her. She’s too strong-willed.”

“Well, she may not know that Lucifer is pressuring her.”

The entire group turned to look at Cas. He was looking better, still having enough angel mojo to gradually heal himself. Cas continued, “Lucifer can take the form of anyone and anything. She could see Lucifer as her mother, her father, anyone. Even…” Cas hesitated, “…even you, Doctor.”

The Doctor shook his head. “No, no, she wouldn’t fall for something like that, I mean, she barely feels like she knows me as it is, I don’t think she’d take kindly to me asking her favors, like, I don’t know, could I possess her or something?”

“Doctor, you’ve been a part of her before,” Cas said quietly.

It would have been possible to hear a pin drop. No one dared to breathe, not even the Doctor, as the weight of what had just been said hit him.

After a few moments of silence, Cas managed to continue. “It may feel…only natural to her at this point. And besides,” Cas said, his eyes now fixed solely on the Doctor, “it may not necessarily be this face of yours that she sees.”

The door banged as the Doctor burst his way out. Dean and the others scurried out after him, and all were shocked to see that the place that the Doctor stood in the parking lot, where the TARDIS had been moments ago, was now empty.

Cas came up behind Dean and used him for support. The Doctor’s eyes were crazed as he looked wildly around the group, searching for answers.

Cas’s gravelly voice is what offered it up. His hand was to his head, tuning into his “angel radio” as Dean called it. He looked grimly around the group before saying one sentence that answered practically every question.

“The angels have the phone box.”

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

“There’s only one reason the angels would want the TARDIS,” Sam said as the group came back into the motel room, except for the Doctor, who sat on a curb outside.

“Donna said yes to Lucifer,” River said, shaking her head.

The discussion raged over the period of a few minutes until Dean cleared his throat and said, “So what are we going to do about it?”

“Well, we need to get the TARDIS back, of course,” Jack said.

“And hopefully Donna too…in one piece,” Clara murmured. She had immediately taken a liking to the fiery redhead, and the whole situation made Clara feel sick to her stomach.

“She will be in one piece,” the Doctor said, and the group jumped because they hadn’t noticed he’d re-entered the room. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“Take the lead, Doctor,” Jack said. “What do you need from us?”

“Hold on just a minute,” Sam stammered suddenly. He seemed a little put off by having all the eyes on him, but he continued, “I just want to state my completely valid opinion…why should the Doctor take the lead on this?”

Jack and Clara managed to offer up many reasons, and River offered up “Because I trust this man with my life,” but Sam raised his hand.

“Please. Just, hear me out. Dean and Cas and I truly barely know him. We don’t know how to work with him on this, and well, I just want to make sure that we’re not going on a suicide mission.”

Clara stepped up to him. Sam was significantly taller than her, but he seemed to back down a little bit under her gaze. “We’re just trusting you. That’s a good enough reason. Why the sudden lack of faith in the Doctor?”

Sam flushed a little bit, but he mumbled, “I Googled him and nothing came up.”

“That’s your grand reason?” Jack laughed a little bit. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Well, you’d think a man that shows up everywhere in time and space would have gotten noticed or mentioned, maybe by someone he helped along the way or he would’ve shown up in two different pictures of two different time periods or something,” Sam said defensively. “You can find just about anything on the Internet, I don’t see why I can’t find him.”

“It’s because all records of me in all of history were wiped by Oswin Oswald when--” the Doctor began in defense of himself.

“Oswin Oswald,” Clara broke in. “Doctor, who’s that?”

The Doctor suddenly realized his mistake. “I’ve been around twelve hundred years, Clara, you run into people with similar names--”

“But Oswin Oswald,” Clara said. “I found a headstone, just before I met you, which said Clara Oswin Oswald. Why are our names similar? Are we related or something?” Clara looked at the Doctor with hurt eyes. “Is that the reason you came and found me? Because you knew Oswin Oswald, and Clara Oswin Oswald, and you thought, well, Clara Oswald, she’d be a nice replacement? I knew I reminded you of someone else, but this--”

“Clara!” the Doctor shouted, and Clara fell silent. The Doctor grabbed her shoulders. “Listen, Clara. You all have similar names. You share similarities, too. Soufflés. Being a nanny. Saying the same sentence, ‘Run you clever boy and remember.’ But Oswin Oswald and Clara Oswin Oswald, they both _died._ So how can you be here? You impossible girl, the girl who died twice. How can you be here? How _can_ you?”

Clara grabbed the Doctor’s hands in her own and moved them off her shoulders. “Because I’m the girl who can,” she said softly. “And we figure everything out Doctor, so we’ll figure this out. But I was wrong to get us off topic. I’m not the main focus here, no matter how many times I’ve died. This is about Donna. So let’s think of a way to save her. Oh, and stop the apocalypse while we’re at it.”


	10. Chapter 10

“This is a hell of a plan,” Dean grumbled as the odd group of seven moved forward.

“Shut up, chosen boy,” Clara said, poking him in the back of the head as they crept along the outskirts of a chain-link fence.

Cas had been able to tune the frequency of his angel radio well enough before it pretty much became lost for good. He had discovered the location of the TARDIS: it was in an abandoned warehouse just outside Lawrence, Kansas. Typical, Dean thought, that the angels would choose that town. It was probably Michael’s idea, to lure Dean there and trap him while he felt weak. Dean couldn’t pretend he didn’t feel the pull in his gut to just join with Michael and wreak havoc across the world. How good would it be, to feel that powerful? To have the world under his control? He had to shake off the feeling, though, to focus on the mission ahead. And that mission was, pretty much, use the element of surprise and see what the hell happened after that.

There wasn’t an angel in sight. “They’ll all be inside, protecting the TARDIS,” Cas said. “After all, they can’t really get in it to see what Lucifer is doing, so they’ll just wait to see if he comes out, I suppose.”

“Strange, how they treat the brother they cast out of heaven with such reverence just because he needs to be destroyed so they can get what they want,” Sam murmured.

The group stole away towards the warehouse, darting behind trees and bushes to the point that it almost felt absurd. Jack snuck a glance in one of windows, sucked in a breath, and came to report to everyone else.

“It’s covered in angels. They’re all just sitting around, waiting.” He shivered. “I’m sure they’re just a step away from full-on attack mode.”

“They don’t know we’re here, though?” Clara said hopefully.

Cas shrugged. “I doubt they’re expecting us to do anything this…stupid,” he admitted. “They can always sense where their brothers and sisters are, but I’m so cut off from heaven I doubt they have any idea where I am anymore, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“So how do we fight them?” Sam said.

“River and I have dozens of weapons on each of us, but they won’t do any good against an angel,” Jack said. “My angel stunners are in the TARDIS, and even then it doesn’t last very long.”

“It’s a good thing I collect souvenirs,” Cas said softly, and shook out his left trench coat sleeve. Three angel-killing blades came sliding out. Cas took one in his hand, and held out the other two. Sam and Dean wordlessly reached for them, but were beat to it by Jack and River.

“No,” the Doctor said, “no, we’re not hurting anyone. I won’t have that. We’re trying to stop the apocalypse so no one gets hurt, we shouldn’t hurt people getting to that goal.”

The sadness that River felt was almost palpable as she reached over to caress the Doctor’s cheek. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, and a single tear fell down her cheek as she smiled. The Doctor was about to reach out to her, when River got up and bounded away. Within seconds she was at the main double door to the abandoned warehouse, which she kicked in with a bang. The knife danced between her fingers as she looked upon the hundreds of angels which waited before her.

A grin spread across Jack’s face. “God, I think I’m in love with her. Sorry, Doctor.” Soon he was right next to her, standing at the door to the warehouse, knife in hand, having the ultimate stare down with an unbeatable foe.

Cas rose to his feet. “Slip in through one of the back windows,” he said, gesturing to the far end of the warehouse. “We’ll keep the fighting to the front.”

“Damn it, Cas.” Dean gripped Cas’s wrist before he could go.

“Let me go, Dean, you have work to do,” he said edgily, wrenching his wrist from Dean’s grip.

“I…just, you all be careful, okay?” Dean said brusquely.

Cas’s frown deepened. “I’m not going to lie to you, Dean, when I say that Jack, River, and I are embarking on a suicide mission here. This is the last time we will ever see each other.”

“Don’t say that.” Dean was on his feet too. He looked at Cas for longer than Cas could afford, and Cas started to back away.

“Goodbye, Dean.”

The angel was soon standing beside Jack and River. The three of them made a wall, blocking the door, as River charmed them with threatening small talk and Jack and Cas stood smugly at either of her shoulders.

“Let’s go,” Sam said, pulling both Dean and the Doctor along by their sleeves.

“This is all wrong,” the Doctor kept muttering.

“Then let’s fix this before they tear each other to pieces,” Sam said.

The warehouse was one big room. The Doctor, Dean, Sam, and Clara each slipped into the warehouse through a back window, and mercifully, the TARDIS was close. All the angels were moved forward from it, distracted by the looming threat of the trio at the door. The Doctor snapped his fingers, and the TARDIS door opened. The four of them slipped inside it, and the door shut with a creak.

Several dozen heads turned to look at the TARDIS door just as it shut. Several rushed forward to try to open it again. The rest turned back to look at River, Jack, and Cas.

River held the tip of her knife to her lips. “Whoops.”

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

The TARDIS was darker than usual inside. The Doctor, Dean, Sam, and Clara crept forward, unsure of where Donna would be. The first idea was to check her bedroom, which was the most hopeful and obvious place; unfortunately, she wasn’t there. The Doctor then led them around twisting hallways and through gigantic rooms, through libraries and bedrooms and even a swimming pool. The Doctor led the way, followed closely by Dean, and Sam and Clara stood behind them, keeping watch at the back and Clara slightly enjoying the way Sam’s tall body would most likely be an easier target than her small frame.

It could have been minutes, or hours, or days before Dean spoke. “Is there anywhere else you can think of, anywhere at all?”

“Oh, yes, there’s plenty of places I can think of, all equally terrifying.” The Doctor inhaled sharply. “Oh, but then there’s that place.”

“Specific, thanks,” Dean muttered.

“No, you don’t understand, it’s the absolutely worst place to be. So it’s only natural that Lucifer should have sought it out. Nothing’s happened yet, I can tell, but it’s only a matter of time…”

“Okay, would you stop being cryptic?” Dean hissed.

“How nice of you to finally stop by.”

The four companions rounded a corner and stopped at the entrance. It was a huge room, and above it was possible to see through the grated floor near the TARDIS mainframe. The encased pillar of light that was so enchanting to watch when the TARDIS moved continued down here, except it was no longer encased, but a tornado of bright stabs of white light and electricity. It let out a roar that swelled and lowered in volume.

Donna sat nonchalantly directly in front of this swirling mass of light, a smile plastered on her face. The light lit up her red hair, making her head appear that it was on fire.

“Donna,” the Doctor breathed, almost moving towards her until Dean restrained him.

Donna tilted her head at Dean’s movement. “How cute, how protective,” she simpered. “Dean here realized something the Doctor wouldn’t have done well to have forgotten: I am not Donna anymore.”

“Lucifer,” Sam breathed.

Lucifer clapped. “A gold star for Sammy here. Yep, poor old Donna is gone, leaving me with her deliciously unstable and powerful mind.”

“You can’t do this,” the Doctor growled. “You won’t start the apocalypse, it’s--”

“--not fair?” Lucifer finished. “No, that’s not what you were going to say, you’d have some long explanation about the value of human life. But speaking of not fair, you know what’s not fair? Getting kicked out of heaven just for loving my own species too much.” Lucifer shrugged. “It’s like if your parents kicked you out of the house because you loved them and your siblings more than you loved the gerbils. But you know, millennia of dealing with your anger leads to a certain level of acceptance.” Lucifer clasped her hands together. “I accepted that I got worse than I deserved and I was going to pay back every ounce of hurt and ridicule I ever got upon those I received it for. That is, the human race.”

“These people never did anything,” the Doctor said. “You can’t just destroy the world for a decision they never made.”

Lucifer laughed. “Oh, poor little Doctor. You’re so far behind, aren’t you? I’m not talking about the world, that’s on too small a scale for me.” Lucifer grinned. “I’m talking the whole universe, baby.”

“The whole universe?” the Doctor said in disbelief. “How would you manage that? You’re Lucifer, but you’re only Lucifer. You may have a large amount of control over the Earth, but you sure don’t have much control outside of that.”

“Don’t you see?” Lucifer rose now, illuminated by the light behind her. “That’s where you come in, Doctor.”

The Doctor stood stock-still as Lucifer paced around the light.

“You were always the center of this plan, Doctor. Even though it appeared you were only a helper this time around, you are the catalyst. It is through you that I will rise to power.” Lucifer’s eyes were shining. “After all, who has had more influence over the entire universe in its entire history than you, Doctor?”

And with that, Lucifer spread her arms and fell backwards into the light. She disappeared.

“No!” the Doctor cried and rushed forward, but soon fell to his knees.

“Doctor, what happened?” Clara yelled, at his side in an instant. “Doctor, tell me!”  
“She’s…she’s rewriting my timeline,” the Doctor answered, and he sagged. “Every person, every civilization I’ve ever saved, she’s rewriting the events, and oh, they’re all dying, I can hear their screams,” he sobbed.

“She’s rewriting history?” Dean shouted. “She can do that?”

“She’s rewriting my history,” the Doctor wept, “and my history is inevitably intertwined with the history of the entire universe.”

“So this is how Lucifer is going to manage it,” Sam said. “This is it.” He and Dean stared at the pillar of light, unsure how it had come to this.

Clara held the Doctor as his body was wracked with spasms and he cried. “I’m the girl who can,” she whispered, more to herself than to anyone else. But the Doctor heard her. He looked up at her and mouthed, “Clara, no…”

Clara set him down gently, and said loudly, “I’m the girl who can.” Sam and Dean heard her this time, and they watched in fascinated horror as Clara steeled herself, and took a running leap into the Doctor’s time stream.

Sam and Dean stood shoulder to shoulder, never feeling as close before as they did at that moment. Both brothers knew each other well enough to know what they were going to do next, and so they did it together. They took a running start like Clara had, and together they dove headfirst into the Doctor’s past.


	11. Chapter 11

_I don't know where I am. It's like I'm breaking into a million pieces and there is only one thing I remember: I have to save the Doctor. He always looks different. I always know it's him. Sometimes I think I'm everywhere at once, running every second just to find him. Just to save him. But he never hears me. Almost never. I blew into this world on a leaf. I'm still blowing. I don't think I'll ever land. I'm Clara Oswald. I'm the impossible girl. I was born to save the Doctor._

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

River’s grip slid on the hilt of her knife as it became soaked in blood. She couldn’t afford to stop, not a single second. Every nerve ending was on fire. What she had become, she didn’t even know. But she was untouchable. This must be what she was meant for. She had always been destined to become this.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

_I don’t know where I am. I just know one thing: follow her. The impossible girl is shattering, and it’s my job to pick up the pieces. She’s the only thing that matters to me, just as the Doctor is the only thing that matters to her. She was born to save the Doctor, but she can’t do it if she’s broken apart. So that’s just what I do. She’s born. She lives. She dies. I put her back together so she can do it again. I’m Sam Winchester. This is my mission._

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Jack laughed every time an enemy struck a fatal blow. Within moments he would be up again. Their confusion was his entertainment. They never suspected that a human could not die. They never suspected that he was invincible. His bitter, unending life was his asset. They could do nothing but fall before him.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

_I don’t know where I am. I don’t think she does either. She’s not careful. She’s uncertain. So I follow her trail. She makes everything wrong. I just remember one thing: I need to make her stop. I’m the only one who can find her. I’m Dean Winchester. I’m a hunter. I was raised from hell. I’m meant to fix this._

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Cas hacked at his own brothers and sisters. It felt so wrong. He knew no other way, though. He had given up his old life for a broken man. A broken man he could only ever dream of fixing completely. His allegiances had changed, ever since the day he had raised that man from perdition.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

_I don’t know where I am. I just know I'm running. Sometimes it's like I've lived a thousand lives in a thousand places. I'm born, I live, I die. And always, there's the Doctor. Always I'm running to save the Doctor. Again and again and again. And he hardly ever hears me. But I've always been there. Right from the very beginning. Right from the day he started running._


	12. Chapter 12

Dean landed…somewhere. He wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter anyway.

He had caught up to her. Lucifer. She was vulnerable now. He could feel her confusion because she didn’t know where she was. Dean had learned quickly that where you were didn’t matter. All that mattered was to keep running.

Dean confronted her.

She stared at him.

Moments passed.

Millennia passed.

Finally, words. “You’re not Michael,” she said.

“No.”

“I’m meant to fight Michael.”

“Well, now you’re meant to listen to me.”

She blinked. “Just listen?”

Dean raised his empty hands. “Just listen.”

She was quiet.

The blankness around them occasionally swirled into scenery. Then it would wipe itself clean again. They passed through space after space, green eyes locked on hazel.

“You’re not Lucifer,” Dean said eventually.

“Yes, I am.”

“Maybe partly. But there’s some Donna in there too.”

“You didn’t even know Donna.”

“No. But I heard stories of her.”

“From whom?”

“From an angel.”

“The angels never told stories of Donna.”

“No, they didn’t. They told stories of the DoctorDonna.”

Lucifer’s eyes flickered nervously.

Dean moved a step closer. “You’ve taken in Donna’s memories as your own.”

Lucifer twitched.

Another step closer. “Did you even realize just how powerful those memories were?”

“Yes. That’s why I chose her.”

Another step. “No, I think you underestimated their power.”

“I am the devil. Mere memories cannot harm me.”

Closer. “You’re wrong.”

Now they were face to face. Dean brushed back a flyaway strand of red hair behind her ear.

“What’s more,” Dean said, “is you underestimated the power of the DoctorDonna.”

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

_I don’t know where I am. It’s dark all around me, except for the big wall. The big wall sits in front of me. There are holes in it. I look in the holes and I see the Doctor. I see the Doctor, and I see Donna. But I want to see the DoctorDonna. That is me. I am the DoctorDonna. I am the DoctorDonna, and I want to remember. So I have to knock down the wall._

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Lucifer’s eyes widened. Something in them crumbled and crashed down. And for a brief, shining moment, it wasn’t Lucifer anymore, and Lucifer was gone.

“Hello?” she said.

Dean held her hands in his. “I’m Dean Winchester.”

She looked back at him with all-knowing eyes.

“I am the DoctorDonna,” she said, “and this is how my story ends.”

She burned up from the inside out until he was left with ashes in his hands.

The Most Important Man in the Universe and the Most Important Woman in the Universe met for the first and last time.


	13. Chapter 13

The entire foundation of the universe shook as someone grabbed Clara Oswald’s hand and whispered, “Run.”

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

_I don't know where I am. I don't know where I'm going or where I've been. I was born to save the Doctor. But the Doctor is safe now. I'm the impossible girl, and my story is done._

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

The entire foundation of the universe shook as someone grabbed Sam Winchester’s hand and whispered, “Run.”

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

_I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where I’m going or where I’ve been. I was born to put the impossible girl back together. But the impossible girl is whole now. My story is done._

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

The entire foundation of the universe shook as someone grabbed Dean Winchester’s hand and whispered, “Run.”

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

_I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where I’m going or where I’ve been. I was born to restore the DoctorDonna. But the DoctorDonna is gone now. I’m the Most Important Man in the Universe, and my story is done._

_____________________________________________________________________

Dean surfaced outside of the time stream. He was laid out in between Sam and Clara. His head felt fuzzy, and it took several moments for his vision to come into focus. He sat up carefully. The roar of the time stream had faded to a buzz. The Doctor was sitting before the three of them, his face gloomy. Dean didn't say a word.

Sam stirred, and sat up quickly. "Where is she?" he croaked, pressing the heel of his palm against his forehead.

Dean was confused by his brother's sudden concern, but the Doctor seemed to understand. "Clara is here," he said, and he moved to her side, where she was starting to awaken also. Dean noticed how his voice sounded smooth as ever, yet Dean could tell that something had broken inside of him and would never be the same.

Then again, Dean would certainly never be the same either.

Dean rose to his feet and held out his hand to his brother. "Come on, Sammy," he said, his voice scratchy. Sam took his hand, and in turn offered his hand to the Doctor and Clara.

The four of them went to the door of the TARDIS and peered out, immediately regretting it as they took in the sight before them.

Angels lay slaughtered on the ground, shadowy impressions of wings overlapping bodies. River, Jack, and Cas stood in the midst of all this, their backs to each other in a defensive position that they were reluctant to let go of. At the sight of the Doctor standing at the entrance of the TARDIS, they relaxed. They skirted around the edges of bodies until they joined their fellow companions inside the walls of the TARDIS. River let out a breath she must have been holding for a while. Jack, unscathed, helped an injured Cas sit down.

"I think we deserve an explanation, Doctor," River said.

The Doctor only nodded as he entered coordinates into the TARDIS. They traveled through time and space before landing, but instead of leaving the TARDIS, the Doctor stood at the door to face the others.

“Donna--Lucifer--went into my time stream to rewrite history and destroy the universe," the Doctor said heavily. "That's where Clara, Sam, and…and Dean came in." His eyes locked with Dean's and remained that way as he spoke. "Clara…fixed everything. And Sam…fixed Clara."

"Fixed me?" Clara whispered. "How does that work?"

The Doctor rubbed his hands over his face. "The whole situation is…complicated. Imagine that you were a puzzle, Clara, and each piece of you was scattered somewhere in my timeline, helping me simultaneously throughout my entire history. Sam, he…he went through each step of my history, finding each piece when its work was done, and put the puzzle back together. Which is why you're here now, Clara, instead of being ripped apart for all eternity across the universe."

Clara scuffed the ground with her shoe. "Well, when you put it like that, I suppose I have to say thank you." She looked up at Sam and gave him a half-smile.

"Saving people," Sam muttered. "It's what I do."

"Hold on, then what was Dean doing there?" Jack asked. His face was pale after all that he had done, but his voice didn't waver.

The Doctor murmured quietly, "I don't know what happened, but I can guess. But this is something that Dean would have to tell you himself."

Six pairs of eyes turned to Dean. Dean swallowed uncomfortably. "I can…I can tell you that it was all about the…the whole…DoctorDonna thing."

He looked at each of them individually. The Doctor knew more than he was letting on, Dean was sure, but didn't want to say anything because this was Dean's problem, Dean's moment. River and Jack were morbidly curious, he knew. Sam would want him to open up, and not bury his feelings, but this…this was something he could never explain. Cas understood. Of course Cas understood. Dean could see it in his blue eyes. But it was Clara, sweet Clara, who said what needed to be said. "I think it's better left alone." She stood beside him, and reassuringly placed her hand on his arm.

Sam made a face like he was about to argue, but a soft touch on his arm from Clara quieted him. The Doctor and Cas both nodded, while River and Jack exchanged a look but resigned themselves to not knowing.

"All you need to know, then, is that it's over," the Doctor clarified.

"So where have you taken us, Doctor?" Jack asked.

The Doctor jerked his head at the TARDIS door. "Go take a look."

Jack, River, Cas, Sam, and Clara all made their way out the door, but the Doctor shut it before Dean left.

"I'm sure you have questions," the Doctor murmured.

Dean shrugged helplessly. "I barely even know what happened," he admitted, "except I feel guilty. I feel guilty because I couldn't stop…what happened to her."

"It's best you know now that this was not your fault." The Doctor ran his hand through his hair. "There are fixed points in time, things that must happen, and will always happen, no matter what other details in time are changed. It's practically written in the stars."

"That doesn't make it feel any better."

"No, I suppose it doesn't." The Doctor took a few agitated steps toward the center of the TARDIS again. "I can't offer you every answer, but I can tell you this. This whole ordeal was never about Michael and Lucifer. It was about the Most Important Man in the Universe, and the Most Important Woman in the Universe, coming together to prevent the whole of reality from being destroyed. Donna sacrificed herself by becoming the DoctorDonna once more. The memories were so powerful that they burned her up, and…and everything inside of her, too." The Doctor suddenly took Dean's face in his hands, and Dean first noticed the tears that had been rolling down his cheeks. "You triggered it. You triggered Donna to fight out of Lucifer's grip and rediscover her memories. You were always meant to be there, because you are the best hunter in the world and the only one who could have tracked her down through my time stream. It was always you, but that doesn't mean it's your fault. You saved the universe, Dean Winchester."

"I don't feel like it," Dean said through gritted teeth.

The Doctor offered him a watery smile. "I've saved the universe plenty of times, they tell me, but I'll be damned if I ever felt good about it. Because it always comes with a price, and usually the price is the life of a friend."

"That's not fair."

"It isn't, is it?" And with that, the Doctor opened the door and beckoned for Dean to come out with him.

Dean was shocked by the icy wind and snow that hit him. The other five were shivering but stoically not saying a word. Dean realized they were listening. A song was floating through the air, and it grew louder as Dean focused in on it.

"This is the song of the DoctorDonna," the Doctor said. "We are on the planet of the Ood, where they promised to sing of her always."

Dean was enchanted by the haunting melody. He couldn't understand the words, but he could understand the feeling that was rushing through him. Loss. Sacrifice. Grief. And hope. Just enough hope to get him through today. Maybe even the next day. After that, well, who even knew?

The Doctor stood at the head of the mismatched, ragtag group, his eyes closed as the music wafted over him. River stood at his right shoulder, her curls tangling in the wind. Jack stood at his left shoulder, the life and energy haltingly returning to his face even in the bitter cold. Sam stood over Clara, shielding her from the snow. Clara seemed confused but not opposed to his close proximity, throwing him a glance and a sad smile every now and again. They were going to be fixtures in each others' lives from now on. Dean brushed by Cas, and they stood shoulder to shoulder, turning their heads to gaze at each other for a while before lifting their heads to hear the melody.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

_And know this, DoctorDonna. You will never be forgotten. Our children will sing of the DoctorDonna. And our children's children. And the wind and the ice and the snow will carry your names forever._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this entire story in one night, just a bit after The Name of the Doctor premiered. I apologize, some of this is out of character, but I'm hoping that the end product at least made sense. Thanks for reading!


End file.
